The government’s stimulus coupons can be used from July 15 to the end of the year, but just as in the past, most tax-paying foreign residents are ineligible for the program.
In 2008, then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) issued consumer vouchers to bolster spending during the global financial crisis. The NT$3,600 vouchers were issued to citizens and foreign spouses, but non-married holders of an Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) or Alien Permanent Resident Certificate (APRC) were ineligible.
Now, the NT$3,000 coupons issued by the administration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic can be purchased for NT$1,000 by citizens and foreign spouses of citizens who hold residence permits, but again not by foreign residents who are not married to a Taiwanese.
The reasoning behind this is unclear. Unmarried foreign residents are most likely in Taiwan to work, meaning that they pay taxes. As there is a minimum salary requirement for foreign professionals — which is higher than the domestic average — they generally fall under a higher tax rate.
By contrast, foreign spouses of Taiwanese citizens can reside here without having a job, and have no minimum salary requirement if they choose to work.
So why would the government offer an economic benefit to a group that includes people who pay little or no tax, but not to a group that includes some of the nation’s big taxpayers?
If the intention was to benefit those in need, this would make sense, but the program’s intention instead is to help invigorate consumer spending and benefit businesses in all sectors — just like under Ma’s voucher program.
Unlike Ma’s vouchers, the stimulus coupons require consumers to spend NT$1,000 on a service or commodity to be eligible. Those with less disposable income are unlikely to spend NT$1,000 on something that they did not originally intend to buy.
Ma’s stimulus program was the first of its kind globally in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, but many countries have issued stimulus checks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Japan, all nationals and foreign residents — regardless of income or marital status — received ￥100,000 (US$915). Similarly, in the US, under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, all nationals and non-US citizens with a Social Security number — including those holding “green cards” or work visas such as H-1B and H-2A visas — received US$1,200.
It might be difficult to compare amounts between the three countries, given their different economic circumstances, but the key point is that Japan and the US did not distinguish between citizens and foreign residents when it came to taxpayers.
In Taiwan, there is a tendency to categorize people, labeling them as “foreigner” (老外), “foreign laborer” (外勞 — often used pejoratively to refer to migrant workers from Southeast Asia), “foreign spouse” (外籍配偶), “Chinese spouse” (中國大陸配偶), “overseas Chinese/Taiwanese” (華僑/台僑) and so on.
Such distinctions are irrelevant when it comes to paying taxes and tend only to lend themselves to discrimination. They also put Taiwan at odds with the rest of the world.
Such categorization of people manifests itself in other instances, such as the incompatibility of the numbering format of ARCs and APRCs with that of national IDs, which shuts foreign, tax-paying residents out of online systems used by many government agencies, banks, hotels and transportation providers, among others.
It is time for the nation to start handling all taxpayers according to income level and contribution rather than ethnicity, birthplace or marital status.
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